Breathless (Merciless Book 3)

She’s really leaving.

She walked away. Straight through the front door. Never would I have seen it happen that way. She was always running and hiding in the shadows. I knew she’d leave one day, deep down in the pit of my stomach, but I never imagined it’d be like this. I never imagined it would fucking hurt like this either.

Swallowing thickly and ignoring the pain, I pick up another book from the floor, a hardback of Lord of the Flies. It’s a collector’s edition and I watch as I trace the spine of it with my fingers while asking Daniel, “Did you call Sebastian?”

He’s leaning against the windowsill, but I can’t fucking watch them leave like he is.

I won’t watch her walk away from me.

“He knows already.” His voice is low, not filled with the resentment I keep waiting for him to throw at me.

For being the hard man he is, Daniel always has forgiveness for his family. I wish I felt the same.

“How is that even possible?” I ask him while placing the book on the shelf and reach down for another. Someone else could take care of this and clean up my mess, but I don’t want them to. I need to do something mindless before I deal with the consequences. Every time I bend down is another deep breath. Every book on the shelf is a piece put back into place.

I need to do this before I can deal with Jase going behind my back and everything that’s happened over the last few hours. No one will come out unscathed. No. One.

Grinding my teeth together, I keep my back to Daniel as he answers me.

“Addison was ready to run; I could see it.” He looks full of guilt and remorse as he stares out of the window, watching the car lights die in the thick of the forest as they move farther along the road.

Taking them away from us.

Taking her away from me.

Even glancing at the lights, so small and faint in the distance, shoves the knife deeper into my chest.

“So, I called him and asked if he would mind.” He shrugs, attempting to refute the devastation of what’s happened. It’s clearly written in his expression, but he continues, “He’s never used it and it’s close, it’s contained, and easily defended.”

“Do they really think we’d let them go?” I ask him, feeling a surge of control again. She’s never leaving me. Never.

“I’m sure Addison knows better.” The urgency in Daniel’s voice compels me to look back at him. He’s leaning against the window now, facing the door to my office and staring at it aimlessly. “She’ll try to leave, so we need to watch for that too.”

“Always watching…” I mutter and then add, “For enemies coming and for our women leaving.”

“Look at you, even now you care about her,” he points out and Daniel’s remark catches me off guard. “More than you admit to her.”

“I just don’t want them to have her.”

A withering, sad smirk tugs at Daniel’s lips, making him look even more miserable. “Our women.” He repeats my words and the tension tightens around my chest. “Is there a difference with what’s between Addison and me, and Aria and you?” he asks me in a voice laced with accusations.

“I love Addison,” he tells me before I can answer, his breathing quickening as he struggles to hide the pain of watching her leave him.

He looks at the floor for only a moment, shoving his hands into his pockets before looking up at me and asking me outright, “Do you still love her?”

A beat passes, but only one. A single beat inside my chest and I know the answer. I breathe the word at the same time as the door opens and one of my men enters.

“Boss,” Jett calls out my title while knocking on the open door.

“Do you have an update?” I ask him with an eyebrow cocked, looking at his knuckles on the door and wondering why he fucking bothered to knock.

Nodding his head and straightening his shoulders, Jett answers me without hesitation. Daniel’s restless, leaning against the window then kicking off of it as he listens to the soldier. Jett’s one of Eli’s men. Eli’s a lieutenant, the rank given to the men we trust implicitly to lead other men in our crime family. And Jett’s the soldier he left behind to see that everything fell into place with him gone.

The four of us, my brothers and I, we each have two lieutenants and the area we claim is split four ways. It keeps things clean and organized. All of the men who work for us call me boss though. I’m the one and only boss.

Yet this motherfucker listened to Jase. Jase gave an order that directly countered mine, which should have been absolute, and this asshole listened to him.

A tic in my jaw starts to spasm as I remember, feeling the heat and anger of what happened only hours ago stir hate into my blood once again.

I can see the moment Jett realizes I’m not over that little stunt. His pupils dilate, and he stutters over a word before talking faster. That’s what happens when you’re fucking scared.

I have to remind myself that they didn’t know. Jase is the one and the only person responsible.

“Eli and Cason are in the first car, and there are three decoy cars even though there’s no trace of anyone watching or following.” He swallows, and I can hear the dry gulp of his throat as I imagine tearing it out.

Jase defied me.

They followed his orders and didn’t know of mine.

I remind myself of that fact, bending down to snatch another book off the floor and rein in the rage. Someone needs to have the piss beat out of them for what happened.

Slamming the book on the shelf, I see Jase’s face. He let them go. Everyone will know that she put a gun to my head because of him.

“Would you like me to help— “

“No,” I cut him off in a single, low breath, devoid of any emotion.

“Does ‘anyone’ include Romano’s men?” Daniel questions and I watch for Jett’s reaction, setting another book on the shelf. “Or better yet, who knows where Aria and Addison are going and that they’ve left the premises? Name every single man.”

“Eli and Cason’s men, the ten of us,” Jett’s quick to answer him and then stands silently at attention again. His gaze darts between the two of us, waiting for any other question or orders. The way he stands is firm and upright, same as Eli. But there’s a nervousness about him that I don’t like.

“I want thirty men spread out on the blocks surrounding Sebastian’s place on Fifth,” Daniel tells Jett, although I know he’s talking to me. “The Red Room is on the northern side, so that street is already handled, but the other three sides of our territory are lighter on men and closer to Talvery than I like.”

“We need fifty,” I correct him. The east and south sides need to have a second row. If Talvery’s going to come for them, if my enemies find out where Addison and Aria are, I want more men.

“We can do fifty easy,” Cason answers as if it was a question and not a demand. He continues, “We just need to pull back on the lower east side, closest to Crescent Hills.” Jett licks his bottom lip as he looks past me, using his fingers to tally up men absently.

I take a moment to really consider him as he tells me that “place” is always causing problems, but if we back off the problems take care of themselves anyway. As in the people we tend to have to control in Crescent Hills, simply kill the people that cause them issues if we don’t step in.

I know that he’s right because it’s where I’m from and that’s how it was when I grew up, but it pisses me off. The idea that we can move out of areas we’ve only just begun to take over and let them kill each other off because it’s not worth it… it hits me in a way that it shouldn’t.

Only because it’s a place I used to call home. I know that’s why, but it doesn’t help control the rage that boils inside of me.

“Fifty then,” Daniel answers and crosses his arms. From here I can feel him looking at me, but I’m still focused on Jett as he rambles on about which men can go where. I’m going to start calling him Mr. Calculus if he doesn’t shut the fuck up soon. My jaw is clenched so tightly I think my molars will crack from the pressure.

I could see me taking out my displeasure on Jett. I can already feel how his jaw would crack under my fist. It would take more than one punch without my brass knuckles.

“Carter,” Daniel says, and it breaks the vision of me beating the piss out of this entitled fuck. An asshole who didn’t grow up the way I did and doesn’t give a fuck about anyone in that city.

“What?” I don’t hide the irritation as the word comes deep from my chest.

“Put the poor book down,” he tells me, glancing at the book I’m practically ripping apart in my hand. Slamming it into its place on the shelf, I run my hand down my face and then brace my hands against the carved wood details of the bookshelf. I stare at the empty place still waiting for the books to be replaced.

“Ever the fucking comedian,” I mutter under my breath, trying to relax and shrug off the need to let all my rage out.

“Keep a watch on the two of them and tell us if they want to leave,” Daniel gives Jett his orders, but what the dumb fuck says next pushes me over the edge.

“What if Aria wants to go home?” Jett asks, concern evident in his gaze.

“What’s that?” I can feel my own gaze narrow in on him as I push off of the bookshelf. The room feels hotter, smaller, and adrenaline races through my blood.

The soldier doesn’t pick up on my anger. He doesn’t get that what he’s suggesting is going to get his head bashed against the fucking wall.

“Get out,” Daniel speaks up as I take two steps toward my prey.

Jett goes still at Daniel’s command, looking back at him as if wondering if he heard right. “She’s not going anywhere,” Daniel tells him as he stalks forward, pushing his hand against my chest for the second time tonight. The harder, darker side of his soul shows as he grabs Jett by his throat and pushes him against the wall. So hard I hear a crack, although I’m not sure what it was that made the sickening sound.

Jett’s body sags in Daniel’s grasp.

“Both women will be there temporarily.” Although they’re of similar height, it feels as if Daniel’s towering over Jett as he nods and quickly agrees with Daniel, staring him in the eyes and making sure his voice is clear.

“Of course. They’re there temporarily. I know that.”

“Make sure you don’t forget that.” Daniel’s parting words are sneered as he releases Jett and the man struggles to steady his feet. “Get out of here.” Watching him yell in Jett’s face eases some of the tension. Only some of it.

Jett doesn’t pause or wait for anything else from either of us. He must have some sense in him after all.

“I wanted to bash his head in,” I tell Daniel as the sound of that fucker racing down the hall to get away dims.

“I know,” Daniel says with his back still to me as he rolls up his sleeves. “That’s why I had to do it.”

The ticking of the clock marches steadily between his last words and his next. “With the war coming, we need all the men we can get.”